Investment firms and independent advisors select investments for their customers' portfolios and implement those selections via security trading. The investment professionals rely on accounting systems, also referred to as books-of-record systems, to track the positions in customers' portfolios. In situations where the investment professional does not have custody of the portfolios that are being advised or where the books-of-record system does not have portfolio management functions, a separate portfolio accounting system is used to duplicate the books-of-record system positions. This duplication of effort often involves reconciliation and adjustments as the two accounting systems are seldom in perfect synchronization.
Investment professionals may also use separate systems for portfolio reporting, trade calculation and rebalancing, reporting, document management and customer relationship management. These systems are typically distinct and separate from one another and do not share data or a common user interface.
Investment professionals and their customers are increasingly becoming connected via public networks such as the Internet and are also becoming more dispersed from central office locations. In some cases, data and reports from the books-of-record systems or portfolio accounting systems are loaded onto a website accessible from the Internet but the functions available are a small subset of the functions of the portfolio accounting system.
As apparent from the above deficiencies with conventional systems for managing investment portfolios, a need exists for a system that leverages the books-of-record system data without duplicating accounting functions. A further need exists for an integrated system that permits investment professionals to access multiple functions through a common system that integrates the functions that include: portfolio analysis, monitoring, portfolio rebalancing and trade calculation, scenario analysis, reporting and linking publications and data to portfolio holdings. Yet another need exists for a system that permits investment professionals and their customers to access all of these integrated components via a public network such as the Internet.